ng sculptor
to conclude the bargain, "you have my consent. We will sign the
contract on Sunday next, and the wedding shall be on the following
Saturday, my wife's fete-day."

"It is alright," said the Baroness to her daughter, who stood glued to
the window. "Your suitor and your father are embracing each other."

On going home in the evening, Wenceslas found the solution of the
mystery of his release. The porter handed him a thick sealed packet,
containing the schedule of his debts, with a signed receipt affixed at
the bottom of the writ, and accompanied by this letter:--

"MY DEAR WENCESLAS,--I went to fetch you at ten o'clock this
morning to introduce you to a Royal Highness who wishes to see
you. There I learned that the duns had had you conveyed to a
certain little domain--chief town, _Clichy Castle_.

"So off I went to Leon de Lora, and told him, for a joke, that you
could not leave your country quarters for lack of four thousand
francs, and that you would spoil your future prospects if you did
not make your bow to your royal patron. Happily, Bridau was there
--a man of genius, who has known what it is to be poor, and has
heard your story. My boy, between them they have found the money,
and I went off to pay the Turk who committed treason against
genius by putting you in quod. As I had to be at the Tuileries at
noon, I could not wait to see you sniffing the outer air. I know
you to be a gentleman, and I answered for you to my two friends
--but look them up to-morrow.

"Leon and Bridau do not want your cash; they will ask you to do
them each a group--and they are right. At least, so thinks the man
who wishes he could sign himself your rival, but is only your
faithful ally,

"STIDMANN.

"P. S.--I told the Prince you were away, and would not return till
to-morrow, so he said, 'Very good--to-morrow.'"

Count Wenceslas went to bed in sheets of purple, without a rose-leaf
to wrinkle them, that Favor can make for us--Favor, the halting
divinity who moves more slowly for men of genius than either Justice
or Fortune, because Jove has not chosen to bandage her eyes. Hence,
lightly deceived by the display of impostors, and attracted by their
frippery and trumpets, she spends the time in seeing them and the
money in paying them which she ought to devote to seeking out men of
merit in the nooks where they hide.

It will now be necessary to explain how Monsieur le Baron Hul